Help:Porting mods

Due to the development of BotW starting on WiiU and then being ported to Switch, many of the game's files are not inter-compatible, meaning some WiiU files will not work on Switch and viceversa. This article covers all tools and ways of using those tools to port mods between platforms.

Note that if you want to port a WiiU mod to Switch, you can use this tool for a more automated process. If it errors out, you can come back to this guide and follow the steps for your desired files.

Camera, Model and UI

All these files fall under the FRES format, which can be edited using Switch Toolbox(referred to as STB from now on). Preferably, you will be modifying the same file that was used to make your original mod, but creating a new file from scratch can sometimes work when applicable.

Importing your files

Once you open STB, you'll be greeted with an empty workspace, along with drop-down menus labeled File, Edit(greyed out), Tools, Experimental, Windows, Settings, Console and Help.

An empty workspace, shown when opening STB

From the File drop-down menu, use either Open for opening a single file, or Open (folder) if you want to open all files within a folder. The following process differs from file to file, so make sure to follow the corresponding section.

Animations

Animations have 9 different types: - Skeletal Animation - Shader Parameter Animation - Color Animation - Texture SRT Animation - Texture Pattern Animation - Bone Visibility Animation - Material Visibility Animation - Shape Animation - Scene Animation Out of all these, Breath of the Wild does not use Shape Animations, so they will be ignored for the purpose of this tutorial. As of the time of writing, only Skeletal, Color, Texture SRT and Texture Pattern animations can be exported from a modded file and reimported into your target platform using STB. All others need to be recreated when needed.

Others

All file types not covered in this guide can be converted using BCML's converter without issue.